The survivors of five civilian
Pentagon employees killed in last month's terrorist attack have been refused
permission to bury their relatives in Arlington National Cemetery.

With space at one of the
nation's best-known burial sites filling up, there are tight rules about
who can be laid to rest there.

Active military duty personnel,
military retirees, reserves personnel receiving retirement pay, presidents
and former presidents, recipients of the Medal of Honor and the military's
other highest decorations, and former prisoners of war may be buried at
the 612-acre site.

Spouses and dependent children
of eligible military personnel also are qualified, as are spouses of those
lost at sea or missing in action.

Members of Congress, the
vice president, Supreme Court justices, Cabinet secretaries and ranking
diplomats who completed military service are also eligible. And the inurnment
of cremated remains at Arlington is allowed for all honorably discharged
veterans and their immediate family members.

Exceptions to those rules
can be granted by the secretary of the Army, which runs the cemetery, or,
in some cases, the president. Only a couple hundred waivers have ever been
granted.

The families of five victims
of the September 11 attack on the Defense Department headquarters had asked
for waivers for their otherwise ineligible relatives, said Army spokeswoman
Martha Rudd. Army Secretary Thomas White denied all of them.

Among the factors were Arlington's
extremely limited space and the denials of similar requests from the families
of civilian Defense Department employees killed in the 1995 Oklahoma City
bombing, Rudd said.

Of the 125 people inside
the Pentagon who died in the terrorist attack, many were not active military
personnel, but civilian contractors, secretaries and others.

Remains have not been identified
for a few believed lost in the attack, meaning other waiver requests are
possible. Requests cannot be processed without a death certificate.